Winning $60K Jobs Overnight with Light Commercial

Many contractors overlook the easiest path to bigger tickets and faster closes: light commercial jobs. When a business loses heating or cooling, they can’t wait — they shut down. That urgency turns what many think of as commercial work into quick, residential-style jobs that fund fast and close even faster.

On this week’s episode Matthew Bratsis, Vice President of Contractor Services and creator of OPTIMUS, breaks down how simple the process really is. Learn how contractors are getting approvals in minutes and winning $60K jobs overnight. If you want a high-margin growth channel without adding complexity, this episode shows why light commercial is the opportunity hiding in plain sight.

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00:00:00:00 – 00:00:21:06

There’s a higher sense of urgency in late commercial than there’s residential. Guess what happens to a small business? They shut down and that’s loss of revenue. They use the $60,000 to go get the equipment they had it all up front and they were just like, oh my God, why have I not been doing this for the longest time?

00:00:21:08 – 00:00:44:11

Welcome to Cracking the Code, where we make Hvac success clear, simple, and stress free. I’m your host and contractor, university general manager David Holt. This episode is part of our special 16 part series featuring the amazing speakers you’ll see live at Epic 2026. Today, we’re honored to speak with Matthew Brach is Vice President at EGI and creator of Optimus.

00:00:44:13 – 00:01:12:09

Matthew is presenting a breakout session during the epic 2026 conference entitled The Overlooked Market That Can Transform Your Bottom Line. In his session, Matthew will reveal how small commercial work, often ignored by residential contractors can be unlocked with a simple, repeatable sales process and tailored payment solutions. So let’s get cracking. So welcome to cracking the code Matthew. Thank you David I pleasure to be here.

00:01:12:09 – 00:01:25:12

I’m excited about this great show. So thank you for having me as a guest, Batman. When you bet. We work for the same company, but we live on different sectors of the country, so we only get to see each other at conferences and stuff like that. But it’s kind of cool to see you on the screen right now.

00:01:25:14 – 00:01:38:20

It it does feel that way. It does feel like we don’t see each other enough. You are. I’m on the west, really east. But we said we meet somewhere in the middle. That’s what’s important. You go, there you go. We’re going to meet up in Vegas in February for sure, right? Yeah. For certain 100%. I’m excited about it.

00:01:38:20 – 00:02:02:00

Always excited about the epic. The best show, the best content. I hope to deliver some decent content. That’s what we’re gonna talk about, right? That’s exactly right. So, a lot of residential contractors kind of shy away from, like, commercial small commercial type work because, you know, the customers like maybe a doctor’s office or a dentist office or, you know, small real estate company or whatever.

00:02:02:00 – 00:02:27:07

Those guys, a lot of times they don’t have the cash flow to make things work. So in your, in your, presentation. Now, what are you going to do to talk about that? You know, get consumer financing for small businesses. Actually just as easy as getting it for a residential consumers, homeowners right. What people need to understand I think the biggest problem contractors have is that word commercial, right.

00:02:27:07 – 00:02:43:04

That word commercial really does kind of mess people up. We hear a lot of feedback where I don’t do commercial now, we don’t do kernels, we don’t get involved in commercial and it has certain connotations with it. Right? It immediately, as soon as you hear a commercial, you’re like, I gotta put in a bid, I’ve got an RFP, I’ve got it.

00:02:43:05 – 00:03:16:03

I’ve got to wait for a bid. It’s a different process. It is a, you know, it’s it’s lengthy, it’s a little bit more and and all of that is a false narrative. All of that is a false narrative. So what we want to try to make sure we teach contractors, make contractors a stand. It really is residential. Plus it really is residential plus because what you’re talking about, as you mentioned, churches, which we do the most of churches, doctor’s office, subways, tattoo parlors, whatever it is that you want to do, generally speaking, what do you think the square footage of the square footage of these places is?

00:03:16:03 – 00:03:54:05

They’ve, you know, anywhere from 10,000 to 20, 30, 30,000ft, but small. Yeah. I mean, small, relatively or or how about 2 to 3000ft²? Because they’re, they’re they’re small in most of the time. Most of the time these late residential things are these like commercial are residential equipment. Right. You’re you’re looking at residential equipment. So my question to any contractor is why would you not open up your residential sales to small businesses who have the need, right, and have the desire to have this, this fixed?

00:03:54:11 – 00:04:14:23

And there’s a lot of different things we can talk about here. But one of the biggest things we need to understand that light commercial is there’s a higher sense of urgency in light commercial than there’s residential. So, David, if you were home and your AC unit or your heating unit goes out, your furnace goes out, you’ll immediately want to fix it.

00:04:14:23 – 00:04:34:08

But you’re willing to wait a day or two. You’ll go to a hotel. You go to your neighbor’s house, you’ll do whatever a small business. Guess what happens to a small business? They shut down. They shut down. And that’s loss of revenue. So they want to get this thing fixed quick. And if you can offer a residential like solution, a residential solution as easy as residential, you’re losing business.

00:04:34:08 – 00:04:52:06

You’re losing the opportunity. And there’s there’s gobs and gobs of underutilized opportunity out there. You bet. And you know, it’s interesting. I was obviously a contractor back in the day. And, we had a mall right down the road from our shop, and we did all the maintenance on that place forever, and they wanted to do a renovation.

00:04:52:06 – 00:05:09:06

And had we had the ability to do a little finance package to go along with it, I think we probably could have got it done a lot quicker. But it was 35 package units on the right. And I’ll tell you straight up, it’s easier to change out a package unit on a roof than it is to change out a split system in a house.

00:05:09:07 – 00:05:40:01

I mean, we we changed 30. We swapped out 35 package units in 90 minutes. How do you do that? Well, you do it with a Sikorsky Sky crane. All right, so we had a helicopter drop the 35 units in place. It was amazing. But, you know, the reality is that, the vast majority of of light commercial jobs like that, you know, they’re definitely 25 tons or less as far as you concerned, and a 25 ton package unit versus a 15 ton package unit versus a five ton package unit versus a three time packaging.

00:05:40:03 – 00:05:59:17

Not that there’s no difference in setting those, except for just the size of the box itself. Right. And the. Yeah, and the biggest misconception is we’ve also made the process easier. Right? So while you’re sitting there saying the installation is basically the same and it’s all the same work, there was always this assumption that the process was difficult.

00:05:59:17 – 00:06:23:19

Well, it’s a commercial. So it’s a it’s not the I want to get this thing taken care of as soon as, as soon as possible, and we’ll talk about the process in a minute. But if I could tell you that you can have the application completed in five minutes and get up to $250,000 approved for a commercial client in just a few minutes, and you can get 100% of the funding upfront.

00:06:23:21 – 00:06:39:23

Why would you not open that up to your to your world? Why would you not actually in a large part of your business? Holy cow. Now I’m sold already. I’m gonna get back into business. That’s so. So why don’t you walk us through that process real quick? What’s the process? The customer says. Yeah, help hook me up with this financing program.

00:06:39:23 – 00:06:55:08

What’s that look like? Okay, so the first thing David and I know you, you you know this. You got to offer it all the time. You have to be prepared to offer it. And I think the biggest problem we have with contractors, even in residential, but much less commercial, is they wait till somebody raises their hand and say, do you have a payment solution?

00:06:55:10 – 00:07:22:07

What they don’t understand is that you have to have some basic knowledge of this going in, and there are tax advantages for a business to finance their equipment. So it’s actually more beneficial for a small business to finance than it is for residential. Right. Because they actually have some tax advantages. And most small businesses, even if they have 30, 50, $100,000 available to them, they’re not dying to give it to you.

00:07:22:09 – 00:07:41:19

They’re not dying to give it to you. So if you can put them on a monthly payment solution, that is also a tax advantage and you can do it instantly, immediately you’re solving, you’re just like a slam dunk. You’re checking off all the boxes once you get them to say yes and you make that presentation and you have to present it the same way in a monthly payment.

00:07:41:19 – 00:08:01:23

Once you make that presentation, it is a five minute application. It’s not a personal application on the individual, it is on the business. And it takes five minutes, maybe 15 questions. It is virtually the same process as a residential. It’s just on the business, not on the person. Right. But it’s the same question what’s the name of the business?

00:08:01:23 – 00:08:23:14

Where are you located? What you’re i-n how much? What? Your revenue. That’s it. And we can get you approved most times within a minute or two. Even if it’s a more difficult job, we can normally get you an answer in an hour. Maybe, maybe an hour and a half. But most of the time, I would say 75% of the time we can get you an answer pretty much instantly.

00:08:23:16 – 00:08:42:21

And then we send the docs electronically. We send the docs to the customer, to the end user user. They sign it, and we have the ability to get you at least 50%, and many times 100% of the money upfront. So just to give you an example, David and I don’t want to if I’m going on, just interrupt me here.

00:08:42:21 – 00:09:10:23

But we had a contractor two weeks ago, on a Thursday afternoon, submit a $60,000, a job, commercial job. They got it approved within 15 minutes. And Friday morning, $60,000 was in their bank account because the contract. Because the customer signed it on the spot, they used the $60,000 to go the it, the equipment. They had it all upfront and they were just like, oh my God, why have I not been doing this for the longest time?

00:09:11:01 – 00:09:33:09

And again, we I think it’s it’s a mindset. We just got to change people’s mindsets and make sure they understand that it’s residential. Plus it’s really not commercial. So here’s an interesting thing. So I’m thinking about of a job. I’m thinking about a job that I did back when I was running my dad’s business. This is of course a long time ago, but I set up one of the things I learned real quick is cash talks.

00:09:33:09 – 00:09:52:21

Right? And so if I’ve got the cash in the bank and I call my my wholesaler up and say, hey, what would be my cash prize for this unit if I was going to get this unit? Like I bought three, 25, seven and a half ton carrier package units back in the day. And I said, if I, if I could, if I could pay you cash upfront when I’m placing the order, what’s my price?

00:09:52:23 – 00:10:10:01

And amazingly enough, they had another price. So shockingly, you know, I’m not saying you should always beat them up. I’m not. I don’t necessarily do that, by the way. I don’t necessarily agree with that. But that is a that is a methodology that’s out there. And the sales I’m not I’m not saying that’s a I’m not saying it’s something that we want to recommend necessarily.

00:10:10:01 – 00:10:31:22

But the reality is that, you know, sometimes cash talks. Right, right. Right. And so interestingly enough, when you when you’re able to do that, when you’re able to, you know, turn that job around that quickly and you have the cash to pay all your bills, you do wind up getting better terms with your distributors, too. And speaking of distributors that are watching this.

00:10:31:22 – 00:10:52:01

And so I promise you guys, I’m not picking on you. I’m just trying to help you. I’m trying to help you sell more jobs. For distributors that are watching, you know, what role can they play in helping their contractors learn about this offer of, commercial financing? So it is exactly what you’re talking about by using commercial, they’re actually not going to carry their air, right?

00:10:52:01 – 00:11:10:17

They’re literally not going to carry your net 30, which we all know. Net 30 is many times turned into net 45, net 60s. Right. Because they’re they’re always now you don’t have to do that because when they do a commercial job, they’re literally getting all their money upfront. So the moment that gets customer signed they’re bringing cash to the distributor.

00:11:10:17 – 00:11:31:03

So first off you don’t have to do that. Secondly, I think there’s real value prop in that. You’re going to sell more equipment, right. As we’ve already mentioned, a lot of this stuff is is small residential. It’s, you know, a lot of these things. A tattoo parlor is literally, you know, a 1500 square feet. You’re not you’re not talking a 15 ton unit, right?

00:11:31:03 – 00:11:56:19

So you’re selling more, more traditional equipment, but you’re also selling the commercial that are larger jobs, but you’re also bringing a value product by bringing this to your contractors, you’re creating in a new sticky point by bringing them a financing solution and an educational process, which, as you know what idea, we will be glad to help you with classes and with like bringing contractors in and making sure they understand the process.

00:11:56:21 – 00:12:16:12

And as a distributor, you’re actually bringing something of value to that contractor that is not bringing out there at all. So there’s a couple value props for a distributor, and I think most distributors would love this. It would absolutely jump ball on top of this. So let me throw a couple scenarios that you so I’ve let’s say Holt Realty owns a, a little strip mall.

00:12:16:12 – 00:12:35:14

There’s 15 tenants in that strip mall, and I’ve got a lease with them where they’re responsible for taking care of their own equipment. So the tattoo parlor that’s in unit number four, they want to put a new unit in their place. I own the building, but the tenant is the one that’s wanting to put the new piece of equipment on the place.

00:12:35:14 – 00:13:00:23

We’re good to go there. 100% good to go there. It’s on that. It’s written on that business. The security on that particular thing is, is, is the piece of equipment. They’re good to go. They do not have to own the property. Okay. That’s excellent. Another question then. So let’s say I do get, let’s say it’s $100,000 job and let’s say that 50,000 of it I’m going to give to my distributor, and I’m going to keep the other 50,000.

00:13:01:00 – 00:13:16:06

I’m going to pay my people and my supplier for the for the metalwork and all that I need to do. Is there a way to get a split check where I send that $50,000 check right to my distributor? Or do I need to still write down the check? No. So we could do one of two things we can give you.

00:13:16:08 – 00:13:38:13

Again, we will let you know based on the size of your company, length of business, based on your qualifications. But virtually everybody that we have is eligible for split pay, meaning we will give you 50% so you can pay the distributor and 50% for you. Right? We can pay the distributor directly if you want. We also for those businesses with and it’s not based on size.

00:13:38:13 – 00:13:56:16

It is based on credit. Right. Based on the credit of that company, we can give them 100%. Let them take care of it themselves. So there are two different options. We can give you 100% upfront. Or we could do a 5050 split pay, which is why the distributor would be interested in this, because the distributor would love to get that money upfront without having to carry that mark.

00:13:56:18 – 00:14:14:10

Absolutely. And that’s why I was bringing it up, because if it was me, I personally, even though we had good credit and we have good processes to be able to stroke checks and all those kind of fun things, I would really rather them get paid immediately and not have to worry about it. Personally, as a contractor, I really would rather do that.

00:14:14:12 – 00:14:33:04

That’s true. Although I will tell you what, I’m not. And again, I’m not putting this out there. Just the reality is a lot of contractors use that funding and they use the 3045 days because they want the cash and they use that as part of their cash flow. Right. And then when the distributor starts barking enough, that’s when they make sure they take care of it so they can continue buying equipment.

00:14:33:06 – 00:14:54:02

We’re not trying to interrupt or interfere with somebody’s process. We’re trying to bring them a solution that’s going to open up the door for significantly more business keeping whatever process you have. And maybe to your point, like we’re saying, paying the distributor and making your process even better. Yeah. And so in this case, what we’re really doing is we’re creating a stress free buying environment, right?

00:14:54:02 – 00:15:18:12

We’re making it easy for the homeowner. Excuse me. In this case the business owner. So we’re making it easy for the business owner to get the funding they need to get brand new equipment installed in their facility. We’re making it easy for the distributor to get paid in full and on time. Sometimes in your case, or in your example, weeks or months faster than they’re getting it right now.

00:15:18:12 – 00:15:42:20

So speeding up cash flow for the distributor, which is absolutely a stress point for everybody involved and making it stress free for the contractor because now that’s one less check. I got it right because they’re already taken care of. So it’s like there’s a win, win win all the way around. And I’m kind of excited about the concept because it really does make that entire purchase environment the purchase from the distributor.

00:15:42:20 – 00:16:04:01

I mean, from the, well, from the distributor, but from the from the business owner to the contractor, from the contractor to the wholesaler. It’s like simplifies the entire process all the way up and down the chain. And, and simplification equals stress free. And that’s what, that’s as you know, that’s one of my themes I’m really, really into trying to make life less stressful for the entire industry.

00:16:04:01 – 00:16:30:14

So that’s a that’s a good thing 100%. And when you think about the opportunity, you know, people sit there and say, well, how much opportunity is there? Let me let me tell you one of my favorite things that we say about the commercial. And I, I don’t like using the term commercial. We’re still working on a better term, but for like commercial, every one of your homeowners is a business owner, and every one of your business owners is a homeowner.

00:16:30:16 – 00:16:58:04

So now you’re doubling your literally you’re doubling your network of opportunities, right? And if you do a small church, how many people attend that small church and find out that you are the one that help them with that church, right. How many employees, when you do a small medical office and you take care of them and you make it quick and easy, how many of those employees, when it comes time for them to get their system done, are they reaching out to you?

00:16:58:08 – 00:17:25:21

It is the fastest, easiest way without you spending gobs and gobs of money to expand your opportunity network without having to pay exorbitant fees for referrals. So what if, small church? Let’s just use that as an example. You know, maybe from a financial standpoint, their numbers don’t look as good as they ought to, but maybe some of the leaders within the church are willing to sign basically on on the dotted line.

00:17:25:21 – 00:18:02:03

I mean, how does that work or does is that even possible? All right. So we are we really are now tiptoeing and straddling the line between residential and commercial. So from this from this standpoint, it really is traditionally just based on the the business ownership. Right? It is not necessarily, based on the individuals within that system. Now, many times we can look at the individuals in this particular case, the executive leadership of that and use that if we’re on the fence, whether we could do this or not, we can use and lean into their executive leadership a little bit to get them approved.

00:18:02:08 – 00:18:19:15

But we can also then potentially throw them to the to the residential if we need, because the residential truly is not secured. So there are different options within optimist for the both the residential and commercial. Why I call it the residential plus rather than commercial because it really is just an extension. I don’t know if that completely answered your question.

00:18:19:19 – 00:18:36:13

Obviously, I need to know a little bit more specifics on that. But yeah, that’s that. That definitely helps. Sure. Okay. Just just wondering because I don’t know, I don’t just now thought about that. It’s like we’re sitting here freaking out trying to keep this old equipment running. And I’m like, wait, wait, wait, we have the ability to do this.

00:18:36:13 – 00:18:53:13

If we could pull it off. All right. Well, that’s good. My guess is my guess is if that church has been in in, I hate to say business, but let’s treat it like a business, because for the time being, it from the commercial, if that church has been around in that church’s leadership has been around for years and is well established, they’re probably not going to be turned down very often.

00:18:53:13 – 00:19:11:08

Okay, good. Well, that’d be interesting to look at. Well, we’ll look at that. Separate. Yeah. All right. Well so thanks so much for your time today bud. And look forward to seeing you in Las Vegas. Yeah. Look forward to seeing everybody. Las Vegas. We’re going to get into some of the real like tax advantages and how we can really benefit contractors to.

00:19:11:10 – 00:19:32:22

And again the opportunities are just unlimited. It’s it’s a $500 million opportunity out there. So there’s just a lot of opportunity. So I look forward to seeing everybody in Vegas and hopefully I get to see you before then. Dave. Matthew, thanks for sharing those powerful insights. I know your epic 2026 breakout session is going to be a game changer for contractors and distributors alike.

00:19:33:00 – 00:19:58:23

For more information about Matthew’s breakout, visit epic 2026 and check out the agenda for Thursday, February 12th at 10 a.m.. If you haven’t already registered for the conference, make sure you do so right away. It always sells out, so click Register Now at Epic 2020 6.com so you don’t miss the opportunity. And one more thing please like and share this episode so we can help more Hvac contractors grow their businesses.

00:19:59:00 – 00:20:18:22

Thanks for watching! Cracking the Code where we make Hvac success clear, simple, and stress free. See you next time!